Mike Lee, NBCT

Mike Lee, NBCT, is currently the Director of Professional Development for the Paradise Valley Unified School District, in Phoenix, Arizona and serves as an Outreach and Engagement Consultant to the National Board. He previously served as the Director of Outreach and Engagement at the National Board. Before joining the National Board, Lee served as a principal for eight years, and prior to that taught first and sixth graders for nearly a decade. A leader inside and outside his school building, Lee created and successfully implemented innovative ways to stabilize school culture and attain high academic success for his students. Further, he encouraged teachers in his school to seek certification, helped to develop Paradise Valley's Center for Teacher Development, participated in many state-wide initiatives, blogged for Arizona Stories from School, and served as a trainer for the AZ K12 Center. In the spring of 2013, Lee received his doctorate in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University. Follow Mike on twitter at @Yoteshowl

Editor’s note: This is a guest blog from Mike Lee, NBCT and Professional Development Director for the Paradise Valley Unified School District in Arizona. The views expressed are his own. Recently, I had a conversation with an administrator who was struggling to choose teacher leaders for a long-term initiative at her school. She indicated her school has suffered an epidemic of staff members experiencing dramatic turns in their personal lives, beginning to waver in their commitment to teaching, or even pondering whether they even wanted to stay in the profession. It was particularly disheartening because these had been teachers that…

The year was 1981. The place was Tempe, Arizona. The shorts were corduroy. The socks were tubed. The hair was feathered and, according to my birth certificate but not necessarily my maturity or performance, I was ready for sixth grade. I’d originally come to Fuller Elementary near the end of 3rd grade, one week before the culminating Plastic-Version-of-a-Flute-Called-a-Recorder-Thing evening performance for parents. I proved a natural at pretending to play that poor excuse for a flute, by inflating my cheeks and randomly wiggling my fingers, and survived the concert with nobody the wiser. The next day, I demonstrated that I…

I love a good question, and am absolutely enamored with great ones. This week, I received the latter. Having recently and frequently written about the inherent shortcomings of the current principalship model that is employed by schools across the country, I was asked this morning, “What about schools where the principal really is an instructional leader, has those talents, and applies them regularly? Should they be reticent to share that leadership? What would your message be to the principal who is the building’s instructional leader?” Well first, I would say, “Bravo!” This is an astutely identified point of discussion,…